sleepy_nice
2023
#2 of 2023
Simply the most fun I had with a controller in my hand this year. To me, this is the worlds first Yakuza-lite. Almost too much game is packed in here, but it's balanced so perfectly that it just works, never getting in the way of itself.
Simply the most fun I had with a controller in my hand this year. To me, this is the worlds first Yakuza-lite. Almost too much game is packed in here, but it's balanced so perfectly that it just works, never getting in the way of itself.
2023
#3 of 2023
A delicious meal of a game that gently teaches you how to eat it. This is a puzzle game, sure, but the puzzles aren't in the individual levels. They're in the signals it projects out to you from the moment you boot it up for the first time. Pay attention.
A delicious meal of a game that gently teaches you how to eat it. This is a puzzle game, sure, but the puzzles aren't in the individual levels. They're in the signals it projects out to you from the moment you boot it up for the first time. Pay attention.
#4 of 2023
An exercise in refamiliarisation.
Tears of the Kingdom says yes, you do know this world well. However, the important parts - the way you learn your role in the space, the way you negotiate with your surroundings, the way you PLAY (and by God do you play this game) - have been transformed.
There's a feeling I try and describe to people when I want to talk about this game
Think of a time in your life when you first visited a location you would come to know intimately (a workplace, a school, a friends house) and think about the way you perceived it when you arrived. Which door did you enter through? What route did you take as you explored? Where did you ultimately settle when it was time to rest? What does that place look like?
Now, think about how it looks to you today. Think about how alien that place was compared to how you now know it. You realised there was a more convenient entrance for you, the friends you made tucked themselves in some corner or another that you didn't notice at first.
Tears of the Kingdom does that to Breath of the Wild. By subtly changing your perception of the space by the way you enter it, and by the locations of the towers, somehow - suddenly - the space changes. You arrive at landmarks from unique angles, rivers and hills you've seen a thousand times before are mistaken for others.
A game has never before given me that ultra specific feeling. For all the flaws here (many) I have to give the game credit for that.
An exercise in refamiliarisation.
Tears of the Kingdom says yes, you do know this world well. However, the important parts - the way you learn your role in the space, the way you negotiate with your surroundings, the way you PLAY (and by God do you play this game) - have been transformed.
There's a feeling I try and describe to people when I want to talk about this game
Think of a time in your life when you first visited a location you would come to know intimately (a workplace, a school, a friends house) and think about the way you perceived it when you arrived. Which door did you enter through? What route did you take as you explored? Where did you ultimately settle when it was time to rest? What does that place look like?
Now, think about how it looks to you today. Think about how alien that place was compared to how you now know it. You realised there was a more convenient entrance for you, the friends you made tucked themselves in some corner or another that you didn't notice at first.
Tears of the Kingdom does that to Breath of the Wild. By subtly changing your perception of the space by the way you enter it, and by the locations of the towers, somehow - suddenly - the space changes. You arrive at landmarks from unique angles, rivers and hills you've seen a thousand times before are mistaken for others.
A game has never before given me that ultra specific feeling. For all the flaws here (many) I have to give the game credit for that.
2023
#5 of 2023
Absolutely delightful. A holistic vision of a familiar and psychedelic world. I felt immense amounts of intent and love poured into Knuckle Sandwich, and cackled at the way it revealed itself. Even the flaws are interesting!
Also, Dolus is my boyfriend.
Absolutely delightful. A holistic vision of a familiar and psychedelic world. I felt immense amounts of intent and love poured into Knuckle Sandwich, and cackled at the way it revealed itself. Even the flaws are interesting!
Also, Dolus is my boyfriend.
2021
For much of this year I found playing most video games nearly impossible without getting a truly unpleasant anxious rush, and Cloud Gardens was the best medicine for that feeling that I could have been prescribed.
Lots of games are meditative, but not nearly as many are 'meditations' - by which I mean in the transitive sense, allowing one to reflect or focus thoughts onto a repetitive action.
Cloud Gardens gave me pause on several occasions when I considered the implications it was laying out: that human trash and inorganic detritus could, under certain solitary conditions, give rise to it's own life. It almost felt radical in it's simplicity, placing these objects and allowing their aura to emanate and their essence to grow plants through their inherent existence. It made me think about my place in the world, the energy I emit unconsciously, the energy I take in from inanimate objects around me or on my person, the way that reverberates around a room or a house or a yard or a street or a suburb or a city.
It's a simple game, but a beautiful one. For many puzzle games of this variety I find myself reaching for podcasts or documentaries to listen to in the background as I play. With this game, I never felt the need.
Lots of games are meditative, but not nearly as many are 'meditations' - by which I mean in the transitive sense, allowing one to reflect or focus thoughts onto a repetitive action.
Cloud Gardens gave me pause on several occasions when I considered the implications it was laying out: that human trash and inorganic detritus could, under certain solitary conditions, give rise to it's own life. It almost felt radical in it's simplicity, placing these objects and allowing their aura to emanate and their essence to grow plants through their inherent existence. It made me think about my place in the world, the energy I emit unconsciously, the energy I take in from inanimate objects around me or on my person, the way that reverberates around a room or a house or a yard or a street or a suburb or a city.
It's a simple game, but a beautiful one. For many puzzle games of this variety I find myself reaching for podcasts or documentaries to listen to in the background as I play. With this game, I never felt the need.
#7 of 2023
God I was so sceptical when I saw the trailer for this, but the mad men over at Nintendo actually did it. They made a truly excellent 2D Mario game that learned genuine lessons from the best parts of Mario Maker.
Next time, take out all the talking 🙏
God I was so sceptical when I saw the trailer for this, but the mad men over at Nintendo actually did it. They made a truly excellent 2D Mario game that learned genuine lessons from the best parts of Mario Maker.
Next time, take out all the talking 🙏
Butterflies Episode 1 pays perfect tribute to its influences and feels great to move around in. There's really nice sense of momentum with only a few camera issues keeping it from feeling super polished.
I really liked the mission structure in the open world, nice twist on the formula keeping it from being pure Jet Set Radio tribute hour. Unfortunately there's no map (or none that I could find) and the world does not have enough distinguishing landmarks to not continually get lost, and I wasn't able to find all graffiti spots and missions.
Episode 2 is in the bundle too, I'm excited to see what the developers learned and changed between instalments. Might revisit this and 100% it one day!
I really liked the mission structure in the open world, nice twist on the formula keeping it from being pure Jet Set Radio tribute hour. Unfortunately there's no map (or none that I could find) and the world does not have enough distinguishing landmarks to not continually get lost, and I wasn't able to find all graffiti spots and missions.
Episode 2 is in the bundle too, I'm excited to see what the developers learned and changed between instalments. Might revisit this and 100% it one day!
2021
It took me until early December to start playing this, but by putting off picking it up the only thing that got played was myself. I knew I would adore this game, but I didn't really realise just how thoroughly and completely it would consume me. For a week-long stretch it was literally all I wanted to play.
This game learns the best lessons from tabletop games and then presents them in a phenomenal, economical way. Every time I started a new campaign, I was worried that I wouldn't love my new characters as much as I loved the last one. However within the first dozen encounters, events and opportunities, each group and individual had such a unique combination of flavours that I was never once bored with them. It's a really special thing that this game has achieved!
My only gripes are small, but they keep this game from getting a perfect score from me: firstly, I really don't love the way the game looks, and in fact the handdrawn handcrafted style was one of the reasons I put off playing the game in the first place. The initial pitch was ALWAYS exciting to me, but when I saw footage I faltered. Now, after having played it for many hours I can say that the aesthetic grew on me, but every now and then I felt a little slighted that my party members all felt like they were ripped straight from a budget fantasy webcomic circa 2004, perma-smirking their way through a world otherwise gloriously written.
Secondly (and this might be greedy of me, but) the repetition of certain events over multiple questlines took me out of the experience somewhat. I know there's only so much the devs can prepare, and that inevitably you're going to see the same things happen multiple times. I just feel that there should have been some more care put into making sure you don't see the same event 3 times in 3 consecutive stories, because that specifically was a little jarring to me. This is ESPECIALLY considering how few times the repetitions have happened for me in my first 20 or so hours, it seems really unlucky that the same one or two events and quest opportunities have happened so frequently in completely separate stories so early on in my experience.
Those things aside, I adore this game. Considering there are only three unit types and the combat is relatively simple, there's enough nuance and differentiation between abilities that fights can be handled in a really respectable number of ways. Obviously the main thrust of the game isn't the combat, so the fact that they put this much effort into it at all is honestly nice.
I'll continue playing this game as long as they keep putting out new content for it. I can't wait to see what story I write next.
This game learns the best lessons from tabletop games and then presents them in a phenomenal, economical way. Every time I started a new campaign, I was worried that I wouldn't love my new characters as much as I loved the last one. However within the first dozen encounters, events and opportunities, each group and individual had such a unique combination of flavours that I was never once bored with them. It's a really special thing that this game has achieved!
My only gripes are small, but they keep this game from getting a perfect score from me: firstly, I really don't love the way the game looks, and in fact the handdrawn handcrafted style was one of the reasons I put off playing the game in the first place. The initial pitch was ALWAYS exciting to me, but when I saw footage I faltered. Now, after having played it for many hours I can say that the aesthetic grew on me, but every now and then I felt a little slighted that my party members all felt like they were ripped straight from a budget fantasy webcomic circa 2004, perma-smirking their way through a world otherwise gloriously written.
Secondly (and this might be greedy of me, but) the repetition of certain events over multiple questlines took me out of the experience somewhat. I know there's only so much the devs can prepare, and that inevitably you're going to see the same things happen multiple times. I just feel that there should have been some more care put into making sure you don't see the same event 3 times in 3 consecutive stories, because that specifically was a little jarring to me. This is ESPECIALLY considering how few times the repetitions have happened for me in my first 20 or so hours, it seems really unlucky that the same one or two events and quest opportunities have happened so frequently in completely separate stories so early on in my experience.
Those things aside, I adore this game. Considering there are only three unit types and the combat is relatively simple, there's enough nuance and differentiation between abilities that fights can be handled in a really respectable number of ways. Obviously the main thrust of the game isn't the combat, so the fact that they put this much effort into it at all is honestly nice.
I'll continue playing this game as long as they keep putting out new content for it. I can't wait to see what story I write next.
2021
My lord, does this game have crunch.